Mar 23

The Great Way with Kyabje Kalu Rinpoche (Part 3)

The practice, I think the most important is not practicing a “Buddhism” as a religion. That is the most important thing. Practicing the Buddhism as a, as a solution to your emotion, solution to your fixation, and having a some sort of an open mindset is very important.

The moment you have this kind of a religious ideas “Oh I have to worship this, I have to worship that”, you know, without any question, without any doubt, you know? And that is not really healthy in the long run. It may feel good temporarily, but it does not serve it’s purpose, it does not solve anything. It does not bring you any solution over the time.

So it’s very important that, the very basic of the practice is to have some sort of awareness of renunciation. And then once you have that, and then having a some sort of practice of generosity is very important, you know? Whether you practice Mahayana, whether you practice Tantrayana, practice of generosity is important. When I say “practice of generosity” it does not mean that you have to come here and give me your currency, you know? The practice of generosity means reciting a certain type of visualization in your mind again and again. That is a generosity, you know?

If you think generosity is about giving money, yes, that, that is humanitarian aid, you know, helping people, saving people, animals, all these are good. All these are genuine, all these are positive. It has a positive impact to other people’s life, other sentient being, definitely, there’s no objection. There’s no, nothing against that.

But if you really want to overcome the internal struggle, then you have to start practicing the generosity based on the reciting, the generosity practice. It is very important. If you don’t practice the generosity, reciting in your mind, love and kindness, loving kindness is very hard to develop. As it is very easy to say it, but it is very hard to develop. Even if you may develop, it is very hard to maintain, you know? So therefore, it is very important, that practice of generosity is the source of energy for loving kindness. So that is very important.

Like our, His Holiness The Dalaï Lama, the Great Fourteenth, you know, he always says “loving kindness is important”, “loving kindness is important”, he always says that, he always emphasize on that. No matter where he goes, whatever, whoever he meets, you know? You know, so there, therefore it is very important for all of us to understand that practice of generosity is important.

And it has to go along with the, the practice of loving kindness. Because when you practice generosity, visualization in your mind again and again, you are visualizing all the sentient beings. You don’t have to think about “all the sentient beings have to exist!” or “have to have some sort of impact right now in this very moment!” You don’t have to imagine that hard, you know?

Like some people they do Tonglen practice, you know? They say: “Oh, I breathe out, then all the positive goes out; and then I breathe in and all the negative gets in and therefore I got, and therefore I catch cold, you know?” [Haha]. You know? They have too much imagination about themselves. They say: “Ah, I breathe out and then all the positivity has been developed to the sentient beings; as I breath, take a breath in seems like some sort of negative energy tend to develop, therefore I got sick, therefore I got unwell”, you know? That, that is just simply your imagination. It has nothing to do with external beings, neither your Tonglen practice.

So therefore, the practice of generosity is very important and aligned together with loving kindness. And that is very important.

 

The Great Way with Kyabje Kalu Rinpoche (13′ 45″)
Zoom Meeting – November 24, 2021

To be continued …